“Joe Arpaio was convicted because he committed a crime. He should not be pardoned.”

Progressives and #NeverTrumpers across the nation shriek that President Donald Trump should stop tweeting.

In fact, former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson wants to crowdfund enough money to buy Twitter so she can close President Donald Trump’s account.

However, someone should really tell California Senator Kamala Harris to take a break from Twitter herself. For instance, her latest legal opinion of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio possibly receiving a pardon from President Trump is a little thin on logic and reason.

The President of the United States is allowed to issue a pardon under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which states that the President “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”. That means in order to obtain one, you have to have broken the law or likely to be convicted of doing so.

...[M]aybe Harris is just a legal monster. Sure, she might not oppose all pardons but as the Golden State's top cop, she certainly didn't mind breaking protocol to bolster her office's conviction record. At least that seems to be the opinion of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Two years ago that court refused to uphold a murder conviction in a case that the attorney general's office won previously using false evidence. Judge Alex Kozinski warned Harris to give up on the conviction "obtained by lying prosecutors." And if she didn't, he promised that the court would begin to "name names" and the result would "not be pretty."

Gearing up for her run for the Senate, Harris relented. But that episode encapsulates perfectly why pardons and clemency are necessary. So long as there are ambitious prosecutors such as Harris, convictions will continue to be flawed and sentences needlessly harsh.

Wegmann notes that Harris may be sloppy and ambitious. However, since she berated Justice Neil Gorsuch because he rules based on law and not feelings, the recent tweet seems consisted with her approach to law: Heavy on emotion and light on logic and reason.

Comments

Valerie Plame Wilson’s crowdfunding idea is simply a scheme to separate progressives from their money. All of the crowdfunding platforms have upper limits on how much money you can raise… if she used all of them and maxed them all out she would still be nowhere near 10% of the money she’d need to buy a controlling stake in Twitter.

What’s wrong with letting the administration know that there’s support for a pardon? Afraid a display of support will make a difference? If you don’t think a display of support can make a difference, why do you care?

Arpaio is a bully and a sadist. Many of the people who were trapped in his web were awaiting trial and simply couldn’t make bail. They had been convicted of nothing. I repeat – they had been convicted of nothing. Yet he proudly claimed that he humiliated them with pink underwear and fed them slop.

Putting up a sign with ‘Vacancy’ on it was unprofessional, tacky, taunting.

One can debate whether convicts in prison should have gyms or college courses. But those in Arpaio’s jail were entitled to decent treatment. He made a big deal about how the guilty needed to be punished. He needs a taste of his own medicine.

I once watched a TV program he shot inside his outdoor jail. An inmate who was passing made a contemptuous remark. Arpaio stopped long enough to insure that the inmate was harshly punished . Anyone who thinks the smallest infraction or any disrespect deserves harsh punishment should accept the same. He had contempt for a judge. The judge’s authority was every bit as lawful as his. Accepting a pardon would be hypocritical, but completely in character for a bully.

I am surprised he and Trump like each other. One might think they would stampede each other trying to get to the camera.

Ummmm the bully was the Obama Administration who wouldn’t cooperate,and uphold FEDERAL LAW.
And when he took matters into his own hands, he was BULLIED by Obama’s DOJ into submission and eventually into court, where he was “convicted” by a bully of a judge instead of a jury.

Anyway you put it, Arpaio broke the law. Every criminal has an excuse or rationalization.

The fake news was put out as click bait by kids in Macedonia. It turns out that the scammers targeted both liberals and conservatives. But the liberals were too smart to bite. The conservatives ate it up. So the scammers gave up targeting liberals – there was no money in it.

That kind of explains the mentality of a Trump supporter. They will believe anything if it coincides with their preconceived belief. If it contradicts their fixed beliefs they label it #fakenews even though they are the consumers of fake news and a fake candidate.

He severely “punished” a prisoner for being disrespectful. Hum… the rack? “Hot box”… Caning? Beatings? Jail is not a vacation spot and maybe .. just maybe.. for the first time they are having to tow the line with the requirements of society? Strict? Yes… Unpleasant? Maybe needed.

Isn’t it a goal of all this to convince a person not to be a criminal?

No, the only goal of detaining a person who has not been convicted of anything, and is therefore presumed by the law not to have done anything wrong, is to ensure he will show up for trial. Punitive measures for such detainees are completely illegitimate.

“That kind of explains the mentality of a Trump supporter. They will believe anything if it coincides with their preconceived belief. If it contradicts their fixed beliefs they label it #fakenews even though they are the consumers of fake news and a fake candidate.”

Tell me this doesn’t apply equally to both sides. Obviously, in the situation you mentioned, the click bait was more appealing to one side than the other. Just like Harris’ comments are more appealing to one side. She knows how it works, she’s just playing to her base. A base that’s just as willing to ingest what they want to hear.

This is the big problem with diversity goals and affirmative action in law schools. Eventually these people become lawyers and are capable of doing real damage. Damage to the politic and damage to clients. Real people suffer in the real world because of some misguided notion that race is more important than ability.

Come.. come… Harris is a rising star with great California credentials… why Willie Brown, the consummate politician, put his seal of approval in…excuse me.. on her in the years leading up to her be being elevated in Democrat politics.

What about the drug dealing scum that jug ears pardoned? For this moron to not see any issue with pardoning drug selling thugs but to go after a law officer who was using every means he could to control the illegal invasion has to be convicted and jailed? No wonder California is as screwed up as it is. She was their AG! I am still fuming over the way she treated Jeff Sessions in his confirmation hearing. She treated him like he was a street thug who was about to be convicted. This idiot has no class or common sense.

Yes! X Potus commuted 1715 sentences, 330 at the very last minute. More than the last 12 presidents combined.. Following Sen. Kamala Harris’s skewed logic, they should not have been commuted because they were in prison.

Harris is no blinding spark of intellectual light, but she’s not so dumb that she doesn’t know what a pardon is.

This is just another brick in the Democratic plan to associate Trump with foreigners, criminals, boogey-men and assorted ne’er-do-wells in the minds of the militantly unreflective. When one of the dimmer voters hears “Trump” they want him to think “The Russians!” or “The Nazis!” or, now, “Convicted criminals!”. Not a terribly clever trick, nor a new one—they put great faith in a similar bit of Pavlovian response before the election, hoping that voters would equate Trump with an imaginary “War on Women!”—but they’ll keep at it because it’s pretty much all they have.

I like Karamel Kolored Harris. This babe is half Indian (dot not feather) and part Jamaican. She was raised by a doctor and a professor. No real street black experience. At most she is about 1/4 black and none of that has anything to do with American blacks.

So why does everybody keep calling her black? Are we back to the one drop theory? How can any American black identify with her? She has no street creds.

That’s because the immigrants haven’t had the Democrats pounding it into their heads for decades that they are “victims”. Since no one has inculcated them with victim-hood they go ahead and succeed; they just don’t know any better!